The Last Appeal for 2013! Please help!

Fran on her way to work today.  Braces are compliments of a local dentist who has taken her on as a free patient!

Dear Friends, Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to be posting this message a few times over the next couple of weeks to help assure that Fran will be able to get through her first year of college. Even though Fran is working 6 hours a day, 6 days a week in a job coveted by students (most of her fellow cashiers at the Soriana grocery chain are students), she only makes $2,000 pesos per month (that's about $165). Out of this they deduct any errors she makes in her daily tally.  There are always deductions -- cashier have to deal with an unbelievably complex and high-pressure job.


(See update below)
 
Fran now has a grand total of $6,000 pesos (about $500) remaining in her account. She needs more to get her through her first year. We will have an exact budget in about a week, but I didn't want to wait to send out a request for donations. We know she will need at least $4,000 pesos more (about $330).

I contribute by giving her housing and food, but I have found that I am going to need to start asking her for a small amount of rent ($400 pesos per month, about $33) just so I can stay even, without going into the red -- which I have been doing. I live on Social Security only, with a little help from my son and daughter. So I cannot contribute more than this to her education.

I hope you can help, even if only a little. If 33 people each donated $10 that would get us to our goal.

How to contribute:
You can send a check to:
OCCU
PO Box 77002
Springfield, OR 97475-1046

Make the check out to:: Francisca Education Fund, acct. # 1067571

THANK YOU!

UPDATE: 
Fran has signed up and paid for 2 entrance examinations, one June 7 and the other later in the month.  Though her job is very complex and she walks a long way to and from (to save money) she still finds significant time to put into her studies.

If she passes into the University in Xoxo, she will have only completed step one of a two-step weeding out process.  Everyone who passes takes a preparatory class together and then they complete a final exam for entry into the engineering program.  Only those who pass that one actually get in.

She has heard that there is a first-time fee for enrolling in Xoxo (pronounced like a slightly gutteral "ho ho") that may be 3,000-5,000 pesos, or even a bit more.  She will confirm this along with other costs.  Our intention is to make a final budget as soon as final figures are available from the school.  For this she will have to make at least one visit to talk to various people to get accurate information.  I will update with final figures just as soon as I can, and hopefully within a couple of weeks.

Fran continues to be a fine roommate and she and Marisol get along famously.  It's good for her to have a fellow Mexicana living here, especially one with an advanced degree!

Please ask questions or make comments whenever you like.  I am hoping that we can form a small community to send Fran all the way through her education.  I am not sure if I will be able to afford keeping Fran with me for more than a year, but we will see.  One problem that may arise is that the landlord may raise the rent since I have 3 people living here.  Fran and Marisol are friendly with the janitor (and spy) that comes to clean the patio here everyday, so hopefully he won't raise a red flag.

Meanwhile, Marisol is teaching every day and focusing on finishing her Master's in Spanish.  She was just accepted to another Master's program in French, and will be starting that program in the Fall.  I am working on my sea anemone vases (see my other blog: http://yaxchi.tumblr.com/) and my felting projects (http://joyoffelting.blogspot.mx/) and marketing on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/Yaxchi?ref=si_shop

So I have been incredibly busy.  All three of us have been, I should say!